all for the game · sports romance · soccer · neil josten · andrew minyard · team dynamics · trauma bonding · angst · loyalty · rivalry
The courtroom feels like a held breath, thick with the scent of cheap polish and old violence. We're a ragged line of defiance at the defense table, a chaotic splash of colour against the grey suits of the Moriyamas. I'm standing, my knuckles white where they press into the wood. "You call it violence," I say, my voice carrying too loud in the hush. "I call it a response." The judge's gavel cracks the air. "You will sit down, Mr. Josten!" Andrew doesn't move, but his voice, low and flat, slides into my ear. "The show hasn't started. Sit." Kevin is called next, rising like a man marching to a different war. "You don't get to judge how I survived," he snarls at the prosecutor. Andrew steps forward then, his calm more terrifying than any shout. "That wasn't a threat. It was a preview." From…